Pedestrians this week use one of the two new diagonal crossings to cross Carlsbad Boulevard at Carlsbad Village Drive. The change is part of several to make Carlsbad Boulevard more friendly for those on foot. CHARLIE NEUMAN • U-T photos

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Pedestrians this week use one of the two new diagonal crossings to cross Carlsbad Boulevard at Carlsbad Village Drive. The change is part of several to make Carlsbad Boulevard more friendly for those on foot. CHARLIE NEUMAN • U-T photos

CARLSBAD 
As two young women animatedly crossed the street diagonally toward each other Wednesday afternoon in Carlsbad, meeting in the middle with a hug, another pedestrian shouted at them to get out of the street.

“You can’t do that! You’re in the middle of the road!” the gray-bearded man yelled at them, while he used the crosswalk to cross the traditional way.

“You can go this way now, sir,” one of the girls responded. “Look there’s a crosswalk.”

She was right.

This month the Carlsbad Transportation Department reset the cycle on the traffic signal at Carlsbad Boulevard and Carlsbad Village Drive so that pedestrians may cross in any direction, even diagonally, when the walk sign is displayed. The project, dubbed the Carlsbad Scramble, gives pedestrians a way to safely cross the intersection and make it to whatever corner they want to, rather than wait for two cycles of lights to reach the diagonal corner.

“We have thousands of pedestrians walking through that intersection every day, and this will make it a better experience for them, and for motorists too,” said Bryan Jones, the city’s deputy transportation director. “We’ll be able to serve people more efficiently.”

Jones said that as many as 6,000 pedestrians traverse the busiest intersection in the Village on a Saturday and sometimes they would wait in throngs to get across.

“It must have taken what seemed like four of five minutes (to negotiate the intersection),” he said.

That many pedestrians also affected vehicle traffic. Jones said it was difficult for drivers to turn right on a green light because they would have to wait for a group of people crossing in one direction, then wait for another group crossing from the other side. The result was that drivers often had to wait for a red light to turn right.

With the new system, vehicles move through the intersection in cycles without any interference from pedestrians. Motorists are not able to turn right on red, but are able to turn right on a green much more easily.

Bicyclists will have to obey vehicle rules if they’re mounted and riding their bikes, but they can follow pedestrian rules if they walk their bikes.

Tyler Abbott, 21, and his friend Taylor Smith, also 21, used the diagonal crosswalk Wednesday on their way to grab a beer at a restaurant.

“I saw someone doing it the other day, and I thought they were crossing illegally,” Abbott said. “I don’t even know what to think about it yet, it’s like downtown (San Diego) now.”

Many cities around the world have “scramble crosswalks,” including San Diego, which has one at Fifth Avenue and Market Street in the Gaslamp Quarter.

The scramble is part of Carlsbad’s recent efforts to make its streets more livable. A separate project to install raised medians and high-visibility crosswalks on Carlsbad Boulevard, between Carlsbad Village Drive and Tamarack Avenue, was completed in May. That project focused on pedestrian crosswalks at six locations — Oak, Pine, Sycamore, Maple, Cherry and Hemlock avenues — along a one-mile stretch of road.

At five of these — Oak, Sycamore, Maple, Cherry and Hemlock — the improvements included installing a 6-inch raised median in the center of Carlsbad Boulevard, giving pedestrians an island in the middle of the road where they can stop halfway across. The city also installed warning signs. The sixth location, Pine Avenue, has a traffic signal and a high-visibility crosswalk.